Toronto Film Festival Review Round-Up

The Toronto International Film Festival has once again come and gone. Over the short festival days, some films came, saw, and conquered the audiences, while others were left lifeless in the event’s wake. For movies that were strong enough to bear the criticism, we’ve created a Review Round-up of the top ten buzzed about films of the year. We’ve got everything from Michael Caine‘s geriatric vigilante in Harry Brown to George Clooney’s goat killing Jedi in The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Let’s take a look at the best and the worst that TIFF 2009 had to offer…

Whip It: The results are in, Ellen Page makes the film…

• The Highs: Without a doubt, this is Ellen Page’s movie; everything rests on her shoulders, and she pulls it off with ease and tough abandon. [Collider]
• The Lows: While Whip It is fun, it’s got some issues, mainly with its script. It was written by Shauna Cross, a derby girl herself, who also wrote the novel that it’s based on. She’s a writing newbie, but unlike someone such as Diablo Cody…. Overall I was impressed with Whip It and I enjoyed it. Barrymore isn’t a strong point (in front of or behind the camera), but Ellen Page and her sidekick Pash (played by Alia Shawkat) are [FirstShowing]

Get Low: Balancing comedy and drama isn’t as easy as it looks…

• The Highs: This wouldn’t have been as good as it was if it weren’t for Lucas Black, who plays Murray’s assistant. He adds an additional dynamic to the story that I loved. While Black has only starred in films like Fast and the Furious previously, he really steps it up in Get Low and delivers a performance that actually made the film for me.
• The Lows: Balancing the Bill Murray humor and Robert Duvall emotion was quite a challenge. While it works most of the time, there were a few moments where it just felt out of place. I was expecting to tear up when Duvall was talking, but then Murray would throw in a quip or two and kill the mood. [FirstShowing]

Defendor: Woody Harrelson saves the day…

• The Highs: Harrelson features large in virtually every scene and his work here is among the very best of his career, showing some remarkable depth and willingness to really let everything go to make Arthur work and he absolutely succeeds. [TwitchFilm]
• The Lows: This debut feature by writer-helmer Peter Stebbings likewise seems destined for eyeblink theatrical play. [Variety]

A Serious Man: Move over Big Lewboski, here’s another classic Coen Brothers comedy…

• The Highs: It is not only a brilliant dark comedy which will have you laughing out loud, but a masterful character study filled with great performances, of a family in crisis, the moral decisions they face, and the horribly funny consequences that result. The ending will have you talking about the movie well after leaving the theater, which to me is one of the definitions of great cinema. [/Film]
• Best of all – in a film about one man’s utter misery, a series of bad luck that never seems to end – A Serious Man never falls into that world of discomfort that distracts from the experience. The pangs are there, but the Coens know how to ease the sting. [Cinematical]

The Men Who Stare at Goats: It’s a hit or miss…

• The Highs: Clooney’s Lyn Cassady is easily one of the best roles he’s ever had, as, for the first time, he`s able to both embrace and subvert his seemingly smooth/ macho image with this. [Joblo]
• The Lows: The Men Who Stare at Goats plays out like a slapstick betting match where each piece of ridiculousness gets topped by the next. And, as one would imagine, that means the ending can never quite live up to the journey it takes to get there. [Collider]

My Son My Son What Have Ye Done: A bad David Lynch rip off…

• The Lows: My Son should probably be considered the biggest disappointment of the festival this year. There’s lots of ideas here, and maybe some of them will stick more on a second viewing, but so much of this is just poorly acted and scripted that it can’t be seen as anything less than a misstep in the career of a great and ambitious filmmaker.[The Playlist]
• The dialogue is delivered in an entirely unreal manner, all of it strangely stilted as if the film itself has been corrupted by the mental illness which occupies its core. [Twichfilm]

Youth in Revolt: Michael Cera does it again…

• The Highs: I think it helps that Cera`s got a really great director here, with Miguel Arteta- who previously helmed similarly dark comedies, CHUCK AND BUCK, and THE GOOD GIRL. His comedic sensibility seems to suit Cera, with him giving the performance of his life. [Joblo]
• The Lows: The problem with Youth in Revolt (the book) is that it’s practically impossible to smash 499 pages of dark comedic brilliance into an hour and a half on the big screen, and, as such, Youth in Revolt (the film) definitely ends up feeling disjointed and forced in some areas. [Cinematical]

Disappearance of Alice Creed: The less you know the better…

• The Highs: Much like Eric Valette did with Malefique, [J.] Blakeson has here created a film with a severely restricted cast placed in a severely restricted setting and yet managed to keep it fresh and engaging throughout.  It never feels claustrophobic.  It never feels repetitive.  His sense of these people and the space they occupy is absolutely bang on. [TwitchFilm]
• The Lows: The big twists in this, while shocking, are also actually kind of funny, and I’m not sure that was J Blakeson’s intention. There were a lot of moments of dialogue and other reveals that were unintentionally funny, or at least that’s what it seemed like. [FirstShowing]

Chloe: It’s really a tale of two ladies…

• The Highs: Julianne Moore’s performance is breathtaking, as the disconnected Catherine her emotions are living and breathing vividly in every facet of her face. Amanda Seyfried is striking; the first image of the film is of her and we never forget that (”I can be your living, breathing dream and then disappear”).  She is a remarkable natural beauty that you believe in – her performance is cogent, so remarkably telling. Julianne Moore and Seyfried have fine chemistry; their scenes together are deeply effective while the plot evolves around them in often surprising ways. [FusedFilm]
• The Lows: The performances in Chloe seem fine, but removed. On one hand, it seems fitting — the chemistry-free connections revealing the utter disconnect from life that these characters seem to live. But at the same time, this is an erotic thriller, and if you can’t feel that attraction, that need, that at-all-odds desire, it won’t unfold and grab you as it should. [Cinematical]

Harry Brown: Get Carter on a pension…

• The Highs: Barber doesn’t shy away from depicting violence, but he doesn’t dwell on it to a needlessly off-putting degree. He’s also subtle about getting across plot points that help define characters: Without beating viewers over the head, he provides ample explanation for why Harry might interrupt his guerrilla war, and actually risk capture, to aid a young woman near death after a drug overdose. [Variety]
• The Lows: The problem lies mostly with first-time feature director Daniel Barber, whose previous work includes television commercials (always a bad sign) and an Academy Award nominated short film (no real guarantee of talent). The clichéd bleach-bypass-ish lighting that contrasts with the deep, semi-noir-ish deep blacks is not without mood, but there’s no real imagination to the compositions – no urgency, no real edge. The cutting is even more by the numbers and lacks the same kind of drive and build-up that made a lot of the 70s crime pictures so intense. [Daily Film Dose]

The biggest and most well reviewed film at this year’s TIFF was Precious, the winner of the festival’s top prize. We have a separate post devoted to the film, that highlights some of its reviews. Click on our Precious Review Round-Up to read more.

What do you think of our top ten films from the Toronto Film Festival?